I Almost Do
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: Six unheard messages light up my answering machine. I have a feeling they are all from you. Maybe I should listen to them. I probably won't. When your phone stays silent for the rest of the night, I hope you realise that every time I don't call, I almost do. Taylor Swift song.


**Author's Note: Just a little one-chapter fic. _I Almost Do_ is in Taylor Swift's fourth album titled RED. In the lyric booklet, the secret message is WROTE THIS INSTEAD OF CALLING.  
**

**It's HarryxGinny because they're the main characters; NOT because they're romantically together. Don't bitch at me to change the pairing because I won't do it.**

**Disclaimer: Lots of Taylor Swift song lyrics in this fic. I take no credit for them. Specifically, there are lines from "I Almost Do" (duh, that's the basis of this fic) and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". I'm sure there are more. Review any lines you find in this fic, and I'll come up with some sort of reward for you if the song title isn't mentioned in this disclaimer.**

**Oh, yeah. JKRowling owns Harry Potter. Infringe her and I'll _Avada Kedavra_ your sorry ass.**

* * *

Red digital numbers change by the minute. Time slips away as each number is steadily replaced by the next. 11.58 glows briefly before fading into 11.59. It's almost midnight and still, you haven't called.

I'm standing over by the floor-to-ceiling window of my sky-scraping flat. Below, automobiles dash hurriedly over the rain-kissed streets of downtown Muggle London. They never slow or wait for life to catch up to them. Headlights shine briefly through the mist, little tiny camera flashes of light as they capture the moment for a brief second. Green lights and red lights and yellow lights colour the night. The stars and the moon are outshone by all the traffic signals. I watch as Muggles pour out of Victoria Tube Station. The late night work shift must be over by now.

I bet you're still up, rushing to get home after a long, tiring week. Fridays were always your favourite day. You work hard at the office, anticipating the weekend. This is sad, I think, because I remember when you used to love the work that you do. It was all you could talk about, back at Hogwarts. But that was years ago. So many years ago, when you would talk about your dreams with me and how you vowed to be the best Auror the British Ministry of Magic would ever know.

You'll be twenty-six this July. Your big promotion to Head Auror is the day after your birthday. I know only because Dad told me so.

I won't be there to celebrate either occasion with you.

.

.

I wake up in the morning, hugging the pillow that you used to sleep on. If I try hard, I think I can still smell your scent. But that's just wishful thinking—you moved out three months ago, and of course I have done laundry since then. Anyone who is Molly Weasley's daughter would be mental to not inherit some sort of domestic skill.

We bought this flat in Muggle London as a graduation gift to me. I told you it was a waste of money because you had inherited Grimmauld Place but you told me you wanted a home that was a little more modern. You wanted a new place to make memories to help you forget the bittersweet old ones. Who was I to dismiss your request?

But this place has always been more of mine than yours. Grimmauld Place is closer to the Ministry and you could commute there better with your late hours. Days would go by and I wouldn't see your face. You would breeze in through the early hours of morning, and I would leave the flat to go to Quidditch practice with the Holyhead Harpies before the tea kettle had finished whistling. Then the days turned into weeks which turned into months and then became years.

Our relationship was crumbling before it even had a chance.

.

.

The day I graduated Hogwarts is easily the most memorable day of my life. It was the day I graduated (duh), got signed as Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, and made Mum cry for a record six hours straight (I promise they were all happy tears).

Oh, yeah. It was also the day you proposed to me.

I said no, of course. I told you that you were being irrational, wanting to pledge the rest of your life to me. I did love you, and you loved me, but that wasn't the point.

The point is, maybe I was better at Divination than Professor Trelawney had suspected. After all, somehow I knew even back then that we weren't going to work out in the long run.

You did propose again, a couple of weeks before you moved out. It was Valentine's Day. I didn't want to be one of those cliché couples who get engaged on that stupid holiday, so I told you no once more.

If you had stayed, you would have known that I was going to say yes the next time you asked me.

.

.

The first thing you did after the war was renovate Grimmauld Place. Suddenly it was out with the dust and the Black heirlooms and that horrible umbrella stand that Tonks continuously tripped over. Unfortunately, Mrs Black stayed. Thank Godric you thought to put a long-lasting Muffliato spell over her endless screeching.

You refused to touch Sirius's bedroom, though. Every time you worked up the nerve to twist the doorknob to his room, your shoulders would slowly slump and then you would turn to me with dull eyes and say, "He put a locking spell on it." And that would be that and you would continue to dust and clean anywhere else but his bedroom.

I accepted your word for it, but one time, I tried the knob and realised that I didn't even need to use _Alohamora_ on the door. It was already unlocked. But I never said a word about it to you.

Sirius's study quickly became your own. You didn't bother cleaning up his mess; simply, you just added your stuff to it. The only major change you made to that room was to give the grimy windows a much-needed clean.

Right now, I bet you are in your roll-y desk chair by the window, looking out at the city. I hope you're wondering about me.

.

.

You still haven't called. You are about three months overdue on that. My hand hovers over the call button next to your smiling image on my iPhone. I bite my bottom lip and change my mind. The phone slips carelessly out of my fingers, and the glass shatters into a million pieces onto the hardwood floor. Just like my heart did when you walked out of my life.

I hope you realise that every time I don't call, I almost do.

.

.

The trees whisper their greetings to me with the rustling of their budding leaves as I jog through St James Park. April makes its beautiful presence known by subtly sneaking spring into the air amidst all the typical gloom-and-doom of rainy London weather. Sunshine ribbons its way through the clouds, and flower poke their sleepy heads up through the melted snowy ground.

Before you know it, summer will be here. It'll be just another season without your greetings.

On the gravel path, my footsteps impersonate the sound of you leaving and my thoughts echo your name. You used to come with me on my morning runs. Five kilometres of time spent with you.

I never thought I would miss it so much.

.

.

I bet you think I either moved on or hate you because each time you try to make things right, there is no reply. I bet it never, ever occurred to you that I can't say hello to you and risk another goodbye.

.

.

_Mind the gap_.

I take heed of what the neutral, emotionless female voice on the public transit system cautions me. I leap off the tube and onto the platform below, minding the gap the entire time.

Luna came to visit me yesterday. She brought an artsy bouquet of wildflowers that had only just bloomed this May and decorated the flat with her delicate floral arrangement. She's still the same, radish earrings and everything. But now she has a beautiful opal decorating her left ring finger. Neville proposed to her just the other day. Luna, Hermione, and I are going out to The Three Broomsticks to celebrate her engagement.

I rush through the busy tube station. I have to get over to Piccadilly, and that place is such a bugger to travel to what with all the tourists crowding the intersection. In my haste, I bump into quite a few people.

Imagine my surprise when one of them turns out to be you.

"Whoa!" you exclaim as I accidentally jostle your elbow.

"Sorry, sorry!" I say over my shoulder as I continue hurrying my way through the station.

Then your arm comes out and snags me by the crook of my elbow except I don't know what's going on besides the fact that some stranger has grabbed me. Instinct overcomes me and I lash out.

"Ouch! Ginny!" you yell as my shoulder shoves you roughly in the chest.

My eyes widen in a mixture of recognition and panic, and once again I yell out a sincere apology. "Sorry, Harry! Didn't see you there. Nice seeing you again; gotta go!" And then I'm off like a stampede of hippogriffs are on my heels.

I hear your shouts behind me but I don't stop. I have a tendency to be late to events and I know Hermione will have my ass on a silver platter if I am tardy to Luna's celebratory lunch date. One thing you never want is a lecturing Hermione who won't get off her soap box for at least a quarter of an hour.

Surely you understand.

.

.

_You have six unheard messages._

I have a feeling they are all from you. Maybe I should listen to them. I probably won't. I cannot believe you have the nerve to finally call me after all this time and only because I ran into you at the tube station. Maybe I should listen to what you have to say. Surely there's something on your mind after all this time.

_You have seven unheard messages_.

You're a damn persistent little bugger. Your voice floats throughout the flat as the answering machine to my landline records the message you are leaving me right now.

"_Ginny? Gin, er, hey. It's Harry. Erm, yeah. Listen, I er, I want to talk. Well, duh. I mean, that's what I'm doing right now, isn't it?"_ Cue massive eye roll. You suck balls at talking on the phone. _"Anyways, er, I guess what I have to say would be better said, um, face-to-face. So, yeah. How about we meet up for lunch or something? And I'm sorry. Truly. I, er, alright. You know my number. Call me back when you, er, get the chance."_

I slowly let out a breath I didn't know that I had been holding. Damn right you should be sorry. You're the one who made me believe that despite my cynicism about our relationship, we might have had a chance at a happily ever after. It's too bad that we had to grow up out of our little bubble and drift apart as we lived out our new grown-up lives.

It takes everything in me not to call you. At some point, we would have to say goodbye again and I don't know if my heart could handle hearing those words coming from your lips once more.

I hope you know that for every time I don't call you back, I almost do.

.

.

The first time you said "I love you" was in a brotherly way to me. You had rescued me from the Chamber of Secrets and while I lay comatose in St Mungo's, apparently you had leaned your twelve-year-old face over the railing of my hospital bed and told me, "Ron, Hermione, the twins and I love you, Ginny, so don't you ever in the name of Merlin do something like that again."

Charming, I know. A real romancer you are, Mr Potter. I didn't even know you had told me that until Mum had mentioned in passing sometime during my Fifth Year.

And that's when I fell a little deeper for you.

.

.

_You have seven unheard messages. First unheard message:_

"Hi Ginny, it's Harry. I, er, saw you in the tube station today and...yeah. I wanted you to know that I, er, still think about you and I hope you are, erm, doing well. I, er, wanted to, er, catch up with you for a bit, and so, you know, if you wanted maybe we could, er, meet up? Yeah, so, call me back."

_End of first message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9.  
Second unheard message:_

"Hey again, it's me. You didn't answer, so I, well, you probably heard the first message I left. Erm, yeah. Talk to you soon."

_End of second message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9.  
Third unheard message:_

"Ginny? Where are you? Why aren't you answering your phone? I'm getting kind of worried. Hope you're safe, wherever you are."

_End of third message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9.  
Fourth unheard message:_

"Oh, you were out with the girls. Okay. Um...alright then. Just, call me for once, Ginny. I need to know that you're alive and doing alright. Please. You don't have to talk to me or anything. Just call me."

_End of fourth message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9.  
Fifth unheard message:_

"I know I don't mean much to you, Ginny, but seriously. I'm begging you here."

_End of fifth message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9.  
Sixth unheard message:_

"I'm sorry, alright? I am so bloody sorry. I made quite a mess of our relationship. I didn't mean for it to be like this. It's just, the pressure of life got to me. I know I told you that we were better off this way, separated and all that bullshit I made up, but I confess that I was wrong. That I _am_ wrong. I still love you. I miss you. I need you. I wish I could go back in time and fix my mistakes. I'm sorry for leading you on and making you think that it would all work out. I'm sorry that I put my job before you even though you're my whole world and I was stupid enough to think that I could keep my job life and my personal life separate. I'm sorry I couldn't give you a big house in the countryside and three kids like I wanted to. I'm so, so sorry, Ginny.

I, erm, well you're probably not going to listen to this message anyways, but I had to tell you that, Gin. I love you, always and forever. Please call me so I can tell you all of this in person."

_End of sixth message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9.  
Seventh unheard message:_

"Ginny? Gin, er, hey. It's Harry. Erm, yeah. Listen, I er, I want to talk. Well, duh. I mean, that's what I'm doing right now, isn't it? Anyways, er, I guess what I have to say would be better said, um, face-to-face. So, yeah. How about we meet up for lunch or something? And I'm sorry. Truly. I, er, alright. You know my number. Call me back when you, er, get the chance."

_End of seventh message. To delete, press 7. To save, press 9._

.

.

You're touching my face so gently, so softly. I stare into your green eyes, searching for answers to questions I have no idea how to voice.

You're asking me if I want to try this again. To re-do our whole relationship. The last ten years of my life.

I almost do say yes.

And then I blink and you're no longer there and I'm rubbing sleep from my eyes as I wait for my plane to Paris to leave the runway. It was all just a dream. You didn't really ask for a do-over. Sure, you told me in your voicemail that you wanted to fix your wrongs but I know you didn't really mean it.

You never actually said that you wanted to be in a relationship with me again.

.

.

Paris is lovely. I have always enjoyed the more sophisticated atmosphere of the City of Lights over the crowded, cobblestone streets of London. Not to mention the Eiffel Tower is undoubtedly superior over Big Ben or even the London Eye.

Gabrielle Delacour, Fleur's younger sister and my 'sister', invited me to cross the English Channel for a couple of days so we could scope out the newest art galleries. And I may or may not have had a craving to go lounge about the Louvre one more time because seeing the museum eighteen times is obviously not enough for one lifetime.

But that was what are agenda was for yesterday. Today we're out enjoying the sunny beams of light gracing us this warm Saturday in June. We're in Muggle Paris, of course, since Gabrielle prefers the Muggle way of life. Surprising, I know, considering the Pureblood bigots she calls parents. Gabrielle just waves off her parents' opinions. She's a free-spirit like that and completely independent.

The delicate clinking of her spoon as she stirs her iced tea brings me out of my musings. "My Beaux-batons two-year _anniversaire_ reunion is this week," she smiles, blue eyes twinkling.

"Oh?" I say politely, knowing exactly at what she is trying to hint at.

She flutters her long, curly blonde eyelashes at me. "_Oui_. And you should come."

I roll my eyes at her. She's awfully blunt when she has a point she is trying to make. "_Gabby_," I tell her warningly.

"What?" Gabrielle asks back ingenuously. "Pierre Beaufort will be there. He has _such_ dreamy _bleu_ eyes. I've heard that he is single. Oh! Alexandre Skeffington! I could listen to his breathtaking voice all day. And then there's Jacques Rousseau. _He_ knows how to properly French-kiss."

I shake my head, giggling at Gabrielle's boy-crazy antics. Ever since Beaux-batons turned into a co-ed school (Madam Maxime was astonishingly open to the idea after her engagement to Hagrid), Gabrielle has talked non-stop about guys. With her long, silvery blonde hair and her wide, blue doe eyes, it isn't very surprising that her days of being single were suddenly few and far between. And once my status changed after my break-up with Harry, she became determined to play match-maker with my love life.

"I'll pass, Gabby," I politely decline her offer to go to her class reunion. "I'm not really into younger guys."

She arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me and sips her iced tea thoughtfully. I make no comment in response and reach for my cappuccino. The summer heat warms me, and I realise that maybe I should have ordered a colder drink from the café that Gabrielle and I usually frequent. Bicyclists and pedestrians amble their way through Parisian traffic, no doubt on their way to stop by the Tour d'Eiffel. I amuse myself people-watching and trying to guess which fashion faux-pas are caused by horrible fashion trends or naïve tourists. Tourists win. After all, we're in _Paris_. Fashion is like a religion here.

"So how's Harry?"

Thank Godric she asks me that before I take a swallow of my coffee. I nearly slosh the dark liquid over the edge of the teacup and into my lap, though.

"Er, Harry's Harry," I respond, just only slightly flustered.

Her face scrunches up in confusion. "Harry's...hairy? Did he grow out his hair or something?"

"What? Erm, no, not that I know of. I didn't look too close when we bumped into each other at the tube station. Why?"

Gabrielle looks at me oddly. "But you just said that he was hairy."

"Yeah," I say, "As in he's, you know, the same." Oh dear Merlin, I think I am starting to sound as awkward and befuddled as Harry does when he talks on the phone.

"Oh." Then her face lights up in understanding. "Oh! I understand now. _Pardonne-moi _for the misinterpretation."

Now that my hand is steady and I am not caught off-guard by her seemingly random outburst, I question Gabrielle: "So why do you ask about him?"

She shrugs in a manner that seems too innocent to be truthful. "Oh, you know. Just curious if you guys have gotten back together or anything. You didn't seem very open to my match-making so I was wondering if you were in a relationship with him again."

"We are never, ever getting back together," I tell Gabrielle honestly. "Like, ever."

She smiles cryptically and responds, "Never say never."

For the next couple of hours or so, I proceed to tell her all about what has transgressed between us. I tell her about my little-girl crush on you, and of all the dating we did with other people before we realised that we only wanted each other. I tell her how the war made you hopeful and a romantic and made me a cynic realist. I tell her how we were so desperate to make everything work out between us that we ended up tearing up the relationship we had worked so hard to preserve. I tell Gabrielle everything and anything I can think of that pertains to you.

It's only when I am on the plane back to London do I realise that I forgot to mention that despite all that has happened between us, I still love you.

.

.

I just want to tell you that it takes everything in me not to call you back after all those voicemails you left me. I fear that if I do have an actual conversation with you, my tears will drown me. My heart has never been fixed since you left, and although it's not broken anymore, it isn't quite whole again.

You took a piece of me when you walked out of our flat for the last time.

I'm sitting here on the cold tile of the kitchen, phone in hand. I trace your number with my mind's eye, but my fingers never push the buttons to dial you.

I don't call, but I want you to know that I almost do.

.

.

_I love you_ has never been so complicated before. It was easy when we were little and the scariest things in life were whether or not the monsters under the bed would come alive in the dark. That was the age of princesses and pirate ships and the Seven Dwarfs. The only magic I knew back then was the creative magic of my imagination. I remember how everything out of reach, someone bigger brought it down to me. It's too bad that now _we_ are considered the 'bigger' ones and what I want is just out of my grasp.

People say 'I love you' all the time. I don't know why it is suddenly so hard to say those three words. Maybe being in denial about being in love screws with a person's psyche or something. Oh hell, that sounded like pure hippogriff shit to even me.

I love you, you love me. It doesn't sound difficult at all, but somehow, with our circumstances and our past history, it actually is quite problematical.

Once upon a time, I might have cared. Right now, well...

Your voicemails remain unanswered.

.

.

It's July. Your twenty-sixth birthday is tomorrow. You'll be promoted to Head Auror the day after. I want to congratulate you; would it be considered weird if I did but the two life-changing events have not even occurred yet? I find that deep inside myself, I really do not mind if I come across as odd. Right now, my Gryffindor courage is showing its big, proud lion head. Something tells me that I have to do this right now before I chicken out like the damn fraidy-cat that I am.

So I press the digits to your number, the one I have had memorised ever since the first time you gave me it, and I hold my breath as I hear the phone dialling you.

I bet this time of night you're still up. You are probably tired once again after another long, hard week of work. Undoubtedly you'll be sitting in your roll-y chair, looking out at the city. Your cell phone will ring in your hand with my name lighting up the tiny screen. You're wondering about me, wondering what made me finally call. Hesitantly, you'll answer the phone and say, "Hello?"

I hear your voice and all the words of congratulations that I have prepared to say to you are immediately erased from my mind. The inevitable tears prick at my eyelids as the memories flood over me. I desperately want to hang up, want to shut down, and run away from this. I almost do. But I don't—instead, I manage to speak the words that I hope are not yet too late:

"Harry, I love you."

* * *

**Author's Note:** **The ending...idk if I'm completely happy with it. But, anyways.  
**

**Taylor Swift's RED tour starts tonight. I was at her Speak Now World Tour on 11.5.11 but I kinda want to see RED. I mean, Ed Sheeran is also going to be singing. Two of my favourite singers at one show? Hell, yeah!**

**I like sparkly red guitars and the acoustic version of I Almost Do which Taylor sings on tour. And I also happen to like reviews.**


End file.
